Joburg Japes

Hallo vriende! Touched down in Joburg at 7 this morning. Bigger queues at Immigration than outside the dole office in Camborne. The airport seems absurdly familiar though. Laid out UK style with greatest hits of the 80s coming over the PA. A Vodafone shop, Upper Crust. Very exotic.

The less said about the flight, the soonest mended.  Nevertheless, if you want to be shoehorned into an aluminium tube, so old that it had dry stone walls rather than wing fences, denied in flight entertainment, booze and reclining seats, then Egyptair is for you. On the plus side, the staff were OK and the food good. Got me down here for a song anyway and the prayer to Allah over the PA, just before take-off seems to have worked.

Joburg is a huge, sprawling city 1 mile high. They say that it takes a minute longer to boil an egg here than at sea level. If breakfast is late, I will now know why. Looks to be prosperous enough, the parts I have seen so far that is. Nevertheless, quite disconcerting to see UK style houses behind steel gates, razor wire and electric fences.

I was given a map of safe walking routes at my 'lodge'.  A short stroll of 3 Km was quite enough. It's around 28c by day and the altitude makes physical exertion that little bit more taxing. Quite a hilly place too. 

 I tried a restaurant and the waitress was horrified when I asked for a salad. This is a meat eaters' country. Portions are enormous and it is possible to eat well for around £4, although you can pay much more. I had to explain that I had just flown in and my lack of appetite was nothing to do with the restaurant. Strolling round the Eastgate mall, I was intrigued to see Woolworths, but selling top brands like Gucci, Nothing like the dear old UK Woolies which we think we all remember with such fondness.

First impressions...folk are open enough, even the old gal in the biltong shop who kept talking to me in Afrikaans until I explained that I had just landed. "Vy then, haff you gott such a suntan?" she finally grated.  The black people I have met have been fine, curious but very dignified. One old lady called me Baas and it made me feel quite unreasonably ashamed.

Now it's time for a Castle Lager and a look at the top South African 'soapie' on the bar TV.